Palm Leaf Soap DIY
Happy Friday friends!!! Man, this week has flown by! Probably because I spent half of it on a mini getaway in Carpinteria (yay!) I need to remind myself to do more of those. Just a couple of days to sit in the sun and get lost in a book.Anyways, I've been dying to share these little guys with you. I got the idea from A Beautiful Mess - so this is totally not original - but I've been making soap for years so I thought I would test it out and tell you guys how it went. Because sometimes, those Pinterest worthy DIY's are not for the faint of heart and don't always turn out... or are a complete disasters. So here is my full report!What You'll Need:
Soap trays - I used these
Step 1: First, you'll want to break up the goats milk soap base and slowly melt it down in a double boiler or in your microwave. Once you have a liquid, add your coloring (I made some teal and some a lighter green) I also added grapefruit essential oil (7-10 drops) and stirred. Then, pour your soap into the soap trays, but only about 1/3 of the way. Let dry and the pop out!Step 2: Once you have your thin green soaps, use a knife to cut out your leaves. This part is WAY easier than it looks... but I will say, it was hard to get the same look as the original post. They may have used a different tool and didn't explain. But I liked how mine turned out.Step 3: Set your leaves aside and melt down the clear glycerin soap. I added more grapefruit essential oil to this batch as well. Once melted down, pour into your soap molds. Now, the original post said half way... but I realized that after you put the leaves in, it raises the level pretty high. So, if you want your soaps to be two-toned - definitely only pour about 1/3 full and then place a leaf in - pushing it all the way down. Let these completely dry.Now I want to mention - you can totally fill it all the way with the clear and place the leaf and these will look TOTALLY cool! You don't need to add the 3rd step. The last step is only if you want another color to be seen through behind the leaf.Step 4: melt down more of the goats milk base but this time I added some of the red dye to make a light light pink. In hindsight, I wish I would have been more generous with the dye here, to get a brighter pink. I was just so afraid it would turn red. I added rosemary essential oil to this batch because I love the combo of grapefruit and rosemary! Next pour your pink (or whatever color you chose) soap over the top of the clear soap so that your molds are now full. Let completely dry and then pop out to use!Overall, this DIY seemed like a lot of steps and kinda hard.. but it really wasn't! And if you wanted to skip the last step - it's still a rad soap. I think these would make perfect gifts for friends over the summer - or even make great wedding favors!! And the possibilities are endless - you could cut diamond shapes, hearts, stars, whatever!
*Special shoutout to Simply Adri Photography for all these glorious photos!